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I'd have to do some homework on whether or not the taste automatically correlates with the insulin spike. However I was listening to an old episode of Robb Wolf's show yesterday, I think episode 21 or 22, and they discuss some studies that show a control group of people being told that they would receive a sweet-tasting meal and just the anticipation of a sweet meal was shown to spike insulin in the body. Not sure how that washes out exactly but there certainly seems to be a psychological connection.

I'd have to do some homework on whether or not the taste automatically correlates with the insulin spike. However I was listening to an old episode of Robb Wolf's show yesterday, I think episode 21 or 22, and they discuss some studies that show a control group of people being told that they would receive a sweet-tasting meal and just the anticipation of a sweet meal was shown to spike insulin in the body. Not sure how that washes out exactly but there certainly seems to be a psychological connection.

I have also heard that! Which worries me of putting vanilla, cocoa butter, or even cinnamon in my coffee.

If it did, would it not cause a drop in blood sugar? somehow I don't buy it, if insulin has a specific job, I can't see it being released to any great extent, produced or readied maybe. "man drinks stevia and go into hypoglycemic shock" I can see the headlines now haha.

Do you have data to show one way or another? Or is that just your guess that is doesnt drop blood sugar.

I'm with Jason. Insulin drops blood sugar by transporting sugar into cells. If non-sugary sweet things spiked insulin, the insulin would transport whatever sugar was already in your blood into cells, blood sugar would not be replenished by the non-sugary sweet thing, and you'd be hypoglycemic.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a negligible insulin spike that's fun to talk about in a "isn't science cool?" way, but not something that could seriously affect your metabolism. Plus, if it's a Pavlov's dogs kind of anticipatory response, the more you eat stevia and xylitol, the less your body will be habituated to spike insulin.

(Pavlov always rang a bell before feeding his dogs. He eventually could get them to start drooling every time they heard a bell, even if food wasn't present. My argument is that if he'd kept ringing the bell without ever feeding them, they'd eventually stop drooling for the bell. If you keep feeding your body sweet stuff that isn't sugary, it will eventually learn that sweet taste does not mean sugar is about to hit the blood stream, and will change its anticipatory response.)

Maybe that failure to actually introduce sugar into the blood stream is why some calorie-free sweeteners cause migraines...they suddenly starve the brain for glucose. This would seemingly only apply to those with perpetually elevated levels of blood glucose--e.g. consumers of the western diet. Brain's way of saying: DELIVER THE GOODS, DAMMIT! Artificial sweeteners: the nutritional equivalent of blue balls. One would think, then, that other non-glycemic sweeteners like monk, stevia, erythritol/xylitol would trigger the same headaches.

Or perhaps the headache is triggered by the lack of expected dopamine released by the sugar exposure. Just like Pavlov's dogs just might bite you if you keep ringing the bell and not give them food our brains give us migraines for teasing sweet but not delivering. So many studies that could be done...

Just chewing might actually give you an insulin spike. So sugar free gum is not safe.

Good to know.

That makes sense, but even if chewing by itself releases insulin you need to know the marginal effect effect of chewing on insulin, and you'd need to do a study to know that. My guess is that chewing can release insulin but not that much.

Be careful what you believe when it comes to Jack Kruse. He seems like a genius because he casually relates everything back to chemistry and physics, but the facts he uses aren't that complicated. It's all pretty much within the sphere of a couple introductory chemistry courses. He leverages the knowledge that he does have to seem like an expert. That's not necessarily bad, however he has stated before that "absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence" This is a red flag as it means that he relies on his intuition and chemical models rather than scientific evidence. For every time that he's right he probably gets something else wrong.